The Dixie State College of Utah Fine Arts Department will host more than 1,100 collegiate theater artists, faculty members and industry professionals from across the west for the 42nd Annual Kennedy Center College Theatre Region VIII Festival (KCACTF), Monday through Saturday, Feb. 8-13, on the DSC campus. The six-day festival will feature the best collegiate designers, technicians and performers from colleges and universities in Utah, Arizona, Nevada and California.

The KCACTF Region VIII Festival will feature 10 fully staged theater productions held in the Eccles Fine Arts Center and the Avenna Center Cox Auditorium, including DSC’s production of Almost, Maine, directed by DSC Director of Theatre Varlo Davenport. Additionally, there will be daily scholarship competitions in acting, directing, playwriting and stage management.

Students will also be able to take part in a number of workshops and exhibitions dealing with stage and lighting design, audition techniques, stage combat, theatre critique, costume and makeup design, choreography and physical improvisation, which will held in various DSC campus locations.

“Hosting this conference is such a great opportunity for not just for the theatre program at Dixie,” said Davenport, “but it also gives great exposure to the college. For a week we’ll have people from all over the country here, professional actors and directors, representatives from the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. and faculty members from many of the best programs in the country.

“During the week they’re here, we get to show off our campus and facilities, impress with the level of our hospitality, and share the amazing community we have here in St. George,” Davenport added. “It’s going to be a lot of work, but we’re excited to face the challenge.”

Started in 1969 by Roger L. Stevens, the Kennedy Center’s founding chairman, KCACTF (http://www.kennedy-center.org/education/actf) is a national theater program involving 18,000 students from colleges and universities nationwide that has served as a catalyst in improving the quality of college theater in the United States. The KCACTF has grown into a network of more than 600 academic institutions throughout the country, where theater departments and student artists showcase their work and receive outside assessment by KCACTF judges.

Through state, regional and national festivals, KCACTF participants celebrate the creative process, see one another’s work, and share experiences and insights. The KCACTF honors excellence of overall production and offers students individual recognition through awards and scholarships in playwriting, acting, criticism, directing and design.

This year, the national festival will take place in Washington, D.C., April 12-17. Selected regional productions and performers will be invited to take part at the national festival.

For more information on this year’s KCACTF Region VIII Festival at DSC, contact DSC Director of Theatre Varlo Davenport at 435-652-7797, or visit http://www.kcactf-8festivalinfo.org/ for a full schedule of festival events.